


In the Days of Ahasuerus

by Daegaer



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-16
Updated: 2004-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley teaches the future queen of Persia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Days of Ahasuerus

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Tosca's Kiss.

 

 

Vashti the queen declined to come when the king called, being too modest to be paraded naked so that his nobles could see how lucky Ahasuerus was to have such a beautiful wife. Within days she was under guard in the furthermost rooms of the harem so that Persian women would learn by her example not to disobey their husbands. Within weeks she was forgotten. No one ever saw her again.

But kings do not stay single for long, and soon enough Ahasuerus was pining for someone to wear beautiful clothes, tell him he was good in bed, and, most importantly, provide him with sons. On the advice of his nobles - the same nobles who had told him that women all over the empire would rise up in rebellion if they heard of his wife's disobedience - he gave orders that beautiful and socially appropriate girls should be brought to the palace.

Crowley didn't think much of any of them. Well-placed families were offering up their virgin daughters and competing to proclaim their girl's praise above all others. Of course, seeing as girls got married almost as soon as they hit puberty, the average virgin daughter looked like she should be at home playing with dolls, not being shipped off on approval to the royal harem. Crowley didn't think Ahasuerus would like any of them. Most of them were as flat as boys and the king liked a more mature, rounder sort of woman. Vashti had been a fine-looking sixteen-year-old, and this lot weren't going to compare favourably.

'Right,' Crowley said, massaging away the start of a headache. 'Send out the receipts to the families, and let's see what we can do with them.' The Chief Eunuch of the harem went off obediently and Crowley wondered how he could get out of this awful job. The harem was crowded, stank of sweat and old perfume over the scent of sweat and new perfume, and it really wasn't much fun when every single woman in the place got pre-menstrual at the same time. No wonder the eunuchs comfort ate. _Never,_ Crowley thought, _I'm never gambling with that bloody angel again. He's a cheat._ He sighed. Conventional wisdom - or rather, a cheating lying angel - said that the real power behind the throne was wielded securely from the harem. Except that Crowley's candidate for influencing the man at the top of the biggest empire in the world had gone missing, and the back room in the harem was sporting a suspicious wall where the door had used to be. And the Queen Mother was terrifyingly moral and good, and didn't seem to hear _anything_ hissed in her ear.

Crowley sat up that night, shaken from a dream. It was the stupidest thing he'd ever thought of, and proof he'd spent too much time eavesdropping on the merits of one colour of eye shadow over another. But the king was an idiot, and it would appeal to his vanity. Crowley slipped out of the harem and crept into the apartments of one of the king's favourite advisors.

'The king deserves the best,' he hissed quietly. 'He deserves the prettiest girl in the world. They have to learn how to please him, how to be beautiful enough for him. Let's have a beauty pageant, and the finalist gets the crown. When you wake up, you will -- hang on, I know that profile.'

He looked closer. The man looked very, very like one of the puling brats cluttering up the harem, yet his name hadn't appeared on the list of fathers overwhelmingly honoured at the chance for their little girls to be deflowered by a man four times their age. Mordecai was an apparently childless, extremely upright man and - Crowley leaned closer, concentrating - he was attempting to sneak a candidate in. Tsk. It seemed that everyone had a weak point.

'Mordecai,' Crowley said conversationally, 'do as I say and your little - daughter? Ah, your little cousin - will be queen of Persia. Just think how proud you'll be, and how well you'll have provided for her. No one need ever know, Mordecai. Just you follow my advice.'

The man frowned in his sleep, as if he was hearing something underhand. Crowley grinned and bent over him, whispering in his ear.

The next day the harem was buzzing with the news that the new girls were to be put on special diets, fattened up and pampered with beauty treatments for a full year. They were bathed and oiled. They were given delicious food to put some meat on their bones. They were taught to walk prettily and dress prettily and sing prettily and to vanish quietly when the king should be tired of them. Esther took well to the lessons, and every day would sit at a particular window when, coincidentally, Mordecai was walking by. Crowley thought that showed an encouraging streak of loyalty, and decided it should be transferred to him.

'You're looking a lot more womanly than when you arrived,' he said, as Esther was getting yet another beautifying bath.

The girl jumped and splashed her attendants, who smacked her.

'Who are you?' she asked, sinking beneath the water.

'Sit _up_ , girl,' one of the maids said sharply.

'You may as well, it's nothing I haven't seen before,' Crowley said.

'Are you one of the eunuchs?' Esther asked.

Crowley stepped delicately around the splashes of water. 'Would you like to check?' he said, laughing at her face. 'I'm one of your tutors, Esther.'

'Why are they ignoring you?' she said, looking at the maids, who were busily oiling every last inch of her, in preparation for washing it all off again.

'Oh, I'm a very special tutor, and I only teach very special girls. These girls are too ordinary to see me,' he said.

'I have enough tutors,' she said firmly. 'I don't need any special ones.'

'Oh yes you do,' Crowley said, taking her chin in his hand. 'You're going to be very grateful for my tuition, girl. I'm going to teach you to lie.'

She looked up at him warily. He wiped a spot of oil off her nose and grinned.

 

* * *

 

She proved a good pupil. Mordecai had already told her to hide her background and relation to him, and Crowley found that more than enough of a foundation to build on. Every little lie she told she was more than happy to accept as an indication of her obedience to her family. Eating non-kosher meat, denying outright that she was Jewish, starting a rumour that a prettier girl had been getting midnight _lessons_ from one of the younger eunuchs - every one of Crowley's suggestions went down well with her, as long as she could tell herself she was doing what Mordecai wanted. She didn't turn a hair when her rival and the handsome young eunuch all the girls were in love with vanished. Crowley told her long, boring stories until any other girl would have keeled over from exhaustion, and she sat prettily, watching him wide-eyed and laughing charmingly in all the right places. If she didn't, he slapped her and they started again. She danced alluringly hour after hour while he clapped out the beat. She told him breathlessly how tall and handsome he was, how she'd never seen a better exemplar of masculine virtue and was so convincing he forgot for a second that he'd supplied her lines. She looked decorative and vapid when he revealed state secrets and whispered those same secrets in his ear seductively as a precursor to asking favours. He was very proud of her.

After a full year of feeding and pampering, the girls began being supplied to the king. Every night a different one would be led away, and would return to a different wing of the harem to sit and wait for a second chance that might never come. Crowley walked around Esther, assessing her charms.

'Not bad,' he said. 'Stand up straighter. Hold your stomach in.' He slithered up beside her and cupped her cheek in one hand. She looked down shyly, blushing and then imperceptibly, as if she couldn't quite help herself, leaned gently into the touch. He grinned and patted her head.

'That's my girl.'

'The king's, I hope,' she said, dropping the act and grinning just as broadly.

'I have every confidence in you,' he said, sprawling on her bed. 'Now, about sex. You know the general mechanics, right?'

She rolled her eyes and looked at him as if he were an aged relative who had to be indulged.

'It's hard to find another topic of conversation in this place,' she said, pouring cups of sherbet for both of them.

'Cheeky. Let's not have that tone with the king, please. Speaking of whom, it's all _Oh his Majesty is like a lion! He overwhelms one with the splendour of his person!_ What does that tell you? _I_ know what he's really like in bed.'

She laughed so hard that her sherbet came out of her nose. Crowley smiled ruefully.

'Yes, well. That could have been phrased better. The truth about Ahasuerus is that he's almost fifty, he's never had to think about pleasing anyone except himself and he has certain contradictory ideas about young girls. He's going to want you to be a shy virgin who's completely ignorant of anything to do with sex and at the same time some sort of raging harlot who wears him out with new and inventive techniques while, of course, not casting aspersions on her maidenly virtue. Oh, and he really likes compliments on his size, but hates thinking that a girl might be forward in her speech.'

'That's so stupid!' Esther said in annoyance.

'Well, most people are when it comes to this subject. But _you're_ not going to be stupid, are you?'

'No,' she said, 'but I don't think I can manage this yet.'

'Nonsense,' Crowley said, 'your name is next on the list. All you need is knowledge, and if there's one thing I'm good at, it's opening people's eyes to a world of possibilities.' He beckoned her over.

'He'll know if I'm not a virgin,' she said, drawing back.

'Relax. All purely theoretical, I assure you. First, how about seeing what it should be like?'

He caught her as her legs buckled and pushed her hair back out of her eyes as she gasped for breath. He put her comfortably on the pillows and offered her his goblet when she finally managed to prop herself up.

'Now, unfortunately the king is never going to be able to meet that standard, but that's what you have to pretend to feel with him. Shh, it's all right. All you need is information. Let's sort that out for you.'

He touched her temples gently and watched her face as whole encyclopaedias of knowledge dropped into place. She looked rather ill and headachy, so he wiped the pain away.

'Some of that stuff is really _perverse_ ,' she said shakily.

'Yeah,' Crowley said, smiling. 'Don't do it on the first night.'

She nodded and gave one of her best meaningless smiles.

'Is he going to hurt me?' she asked lightly, as if she was commenting on the mild quality of the winter.

Crowley paused. She looked terribly young.

'Not deliberately,' he said. 'Keep his interest and you'll get the crown.'

'What will you get?' she asked, as she had often done before.

'A nice girl who knows how to take advice and who has the king's ear when he's at his most vulnerable,' he said. 'And just as importantly, the pleasure of knowing someone I've come to like is well placed and secure.'

'Liar,' she said, and it sounded like a compliment.

He left her to rest.

 

* * *

 

She was very pleasing to the king. She smiled at all the right moments and managed to wordlessly convey how impressed she was with the royal person. The king felt quite rejuvenated with such a fascinating young person looking at him adoringly, and the only one in the room who noticed the fear in her eyes was Crowley.

'I can make it all seem very far away,' he said, watching her bite her lip.

'No. He might be able to tell,' she said, and smiled lovingly at Ahasuerus who grinned like a fool.

Afterwards she lay staring out into the dark while the king snored happily beside her. Crowley sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand in one of his and stroking her cheek with the other, telling her how proud he was of her, that he couldn't be prouder if she was his own flesh-and-blood, how much this would mean to Mordecai, that she was a very good girl and he loved her.

She believed every word. He was surprised by how glad he was that she still had that innocence.


End file.
